Quote: “You can’t lead without imagination” ~ Seth Godin in Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us

Imagination is seriously lacking in today’s corporate environment. We are knee deep in a status quo that no longer serves us and that in many ways, makes us mediocre. To change that, we need to spark imagination in all our employees. But first, we must spark it in ourselves as team leaders. To create the spark you need to embrace experimentation. I’m not talking about creating a department or a committee to look into experimentation. I mean changing the way you lead your team so that experimentation is always encouraged and rewarded. When an idea doesn’t work out, it isn’t perceived as failure but as a learning experience that enriches the team and the lesson learned can be utilized to fuel the next experiment.

Experimentation is the final but core concept in the C.A.R.E. System. It is what ties it all together. In these posts, I have showcased Starbucks and its CIO to illustrate the key principles behind the C.A.R.E. System. At the very core of Gillett’s success was his innate acceptance or need to experiment. None of the examples would have been possible if Gillett had not embraced experimentation. Let’s recap all the ways he experimented:

When he took on more responsibility in the face of daunting IT problems that needed resolution

When he went to work at a Starbucks retail store, not knowing what he’d find or how he would do,

When he showed the Executive team a live simulation highlighting the shortcomings of their existing POS system

When he proposed the new business unit called Digital Ventures,

When he chose an entrepreneur to run the new business unit,

When he made IT and Marketing equally responsible for the new business unit

When he asked employees for their ideas on making IT better,

When he let employees select their IT devices,

When he applied his knowledge of networks to help spark solutions in Starbuck’s retail business.

All of these examples illustrate that Gillett was open to experimentation. He may not have been comfortable with all of it but he chose not to play it safe. At some level, he understood that taking risks was critical to Starbuck’s survival and he, as well as his CEO, faced the challenge and came out ahead. I’m sure that there were ideas that didn’t work out. In fact, the article highlights one. Apparently, Gillett is a big gamer or lover of video games. Actually, he’s a guild master in the online video game called World of Warcraft. That’s a pretty big deal in the gaming community. Instead of playing down that passion, he set up a meeting between the executive teams of Starbucks and Blizzard, the owners of World of Warcraft so they could look into the possibility of doing business together. After all, both companies had a huge fan base and Starbucks needed to find ways to engage customers online the way that Blizzard did.

At the end, the experiment did not end up in a partnership. But all was not lost. The experiment sparked new ideas among the Starbucks executives that led to new offerings for their customers. Embracing a spirit of experimentation almost always sparks the imagination and that leads to more possibilities for innovation.

For companies to be relevant in the future they must make experimentation a core objective for all departments. It needs to be nurtured, rewarded and imbedded into the corporate culture. More importantly, it is a pivotal component if we are to transform the way we lead. Millennials will make up 50% of the global workforce in less than 5 years. As leaders preparing to pass the baton to the next generation leaders, I believe it is our obligation to embrace change and find new ways to lead.

So you may be wondering what happened to Ben and his direct reports? As I dissected the Starbucks case study, Ben was able to see real world examples of C.A.R.E. in action. It sparked their curiosity and an eagerness to try new approaches in their organization as Gillett tried to do in his. Ben, as CIO, made a very important decision that day. He chose not to play it safe. He realized the future required new ways of seeing things and new ways of leading. The Millennials were their new audience not just as employees but as customers. He realized that if transformation was going to happen, it needed to include the Millennials in the workplace. And he was ready.

I’ll end this series by quoting Seth Godin one last time. In Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us, Seth writes:

“The safer you play your plans for the future, the riskier it actually is.”

My questions to you are: How safe are you playing your role as leader? What one thing can you do today to get you slightly uncomfortable? What one thing can you do to get to know a Millennial in your workplace?

Like me, you’ll find that staying in your comfort zone as a leader is actually riskier than embracing a little discomfort to prepare for the future. Once you step out of your comfort zone and see all the possibilities that it offers, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner…

Quote: “ I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game.” ~ Seth Godin in Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us

Connecting with our employees and customers and adapting our mindset gets us ready to play a different game. But you also need action and to do that you have to be willing to RESHAPE your organization. To Reshape is the third module in the C.A.R.E. System. To visualize just how you can begin to do that, let’s go to our Starbucks example.

Here are 3 examples of actionable steps that Gillett took to reshape his IT team and their reputation.

1. He forced collaboration between teams. In the C.A.R.E. System for Next Generation Leadership, we call this “Letting go of Silos”. Silos are rampant across corporate America and they are innovation and motivation killers for most employees but especially Millennials. One of the key Millennial characteristics is their collaborative spirit. They work best in groups and the more you mix up the group the better. Imagine their surprise when they show up for work and see that business units barely interact with one another and they certainly don’t share and collaborate very much. In his pitch for a new business unit, Gillett forced the collaboration of the IT and Marketing teams. Talk about silos that don’t normally have much in common. The new unit was called Digital Ventures and Gillett hired an entrepreneur to run it instead of a corporate type. Now that’s playing a different game.

2. He let the employees choose their technology and propose new ideas. At a time when so many IT shops are still fighting the consumerization of IT here is a company that allows their employees to select from a wide assortment of technology, from Macs to PCs to smartphones to get work done. To be completely fair, the article did say that Starbucks modeled their Tech Café after the Apple Store. That brings up a good point. We should always be scouting the market for techniques that work for others and how they can be customized for our specific organizations. What I liked the most was that they welcomed feedback from the employees on all things concerning IT. In the C.A.R.E. System, we call that IT Advocacy. Millennials are the first generation of workers that actually want more technology than what currently exists in the workplace. No matter what team they work for, they can be invaluable to an IT Dept. But IT has to take the first step and request their help and then be open to the suggestions given. As IT Advocates, Millennials can be a wonderful test group for any new product, process, or upgrade that the IT Department is considering. If done properly, IT Advocates can be a great extension of the IT Department. As IT partners, they also create a great fan base for IT in the company.

3. Applying expertise from an unrelated field to solve a different problem. Gillett had little retail experience before working at Starbucks and according to the article he had never worked on the scale of a Starbucks. But he had worked for companies with big networks like Yahoo. Instead of disregarding that experience, he leveraged it to understand the retail giant and apply that seemingly unrelated experience at Starbucks. Gillett is quoted in the article as saying: “[…] big Internet, like Yahoo, had solved a lot of the technical challenges that big retail had yet to solve… If you think of all your stores like nodes on a network, and all your resisters as computers rather than cash registers, you can start to manage and deploy […] like Yahoo would a server farm […]” Many examples exist in business of how breakthrough ideas and products are discovered when a solution that worked in a completely unrelated field is applied to solve a different problem.

Sometimes, organizations are too narrow-minded in how they view and value experience. Perhaps an employee in your team has expertise in solving problems in another field that can be the breakthrough idea you need to solve a problem. You’ll never leverage that unrelated expertise if you don’t know about it or you don’t support it or you don’t find an outlet to try it out. Experimentation is the subject of our last post in the series and a pivotal one for transformation to occur.

Quote: “What they needed was a leader to bring the organization to a new audience in a new way.” ~ Seth Godin in Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us.

If you’re not quite sure why Millennials are an organization’s “new audience”, I invite you to read through some of my past blogs to get a thorough understanding of this unfamiliar group. As leaders, we won’t be able to really reach that new audience unless we are willing to create a new way or at the very least question our existing way to see if it will work going forward.

That’s why it’s so important for us to ADAPT and find a new way so our next generation employees are engaged and productive in our teams. ADAPT is the second module of the C.A.R.E. System for Next Generation Leadership and it’s an important one because it has to do with a leader’s state of mind. ADAPT is all about mindset and getting comfortable testing your boundaries.

So what specific things can we do to ADAPT our leadership style? Let’s look at the Starbucks case study for ideas. As the new CIO, Gillett embraced 3 things that got him out of his comfort zone and ready to ADAPT and find a new way to lead his IT team.

1. He was curious and courageous. The article quotes Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as saying that Gillett “had an insatiable curiosity and wasn’t afraid of pursing big, bold ideas.” Curiosity and courage are key components of the C.A.R.E. System. To change and adapt to a new way of doing things and of leading is not easy. You are fighting yourself and those in the organization that want to keep the status quo alive. Without being inherently curious, asking lots of “why do we do it that way” questions and being willing to fight the good fight, it is very difficult to ADAPT and give your new audience – the Millennials – a new way.

2. He asked for even more responsibility. In early 2009, Gillett has been in Starbucks for just one year and realizes he inherited what can only be termed an IT nightmare. At the same time, Starbuck’s new CEO, Howard Schultz,asks the company executives to give him ideas on how to turn the company around. He urges them to think outside their corporate functions. Does Gillett ignore his boss’ request because he legitimately reasons he already has too much on his plate? No. He goes ahead and pitches an idea for Starbucks to make a venture capital investment in a new business unit designed to push the company’s mobile and online strategy. That was a gutsy move. Instead of sticking to what he knew and focusing on just that, Gillett saw a rare opportunity to be part of a transformation at Starbucks. It required him to take on more than he probably could chew at that time. He got out of his comfort zone and adapted his mindset to take on a strategic challenge and he succeeded. According to the article, since creating the new venture “Starbucks has become a retail leader in mobile payments”. By stretching yourself and getting uncomfortable you push yourself to try new things. Like a muscle, the more you use it, the more comfortable you become letting go of your status quo.

3. He instilled an entrepreneurial spirit into IT. That’s very rare to see. IT departments in most large organizations these days are all about following the rules, often playing it safe, and saying a lot of NO in the interest of “security”. In the next post, we will see examples of what Gillett did that went against these typical IT practices. The examples were possible because he elected to run IT not so much as a corporate business unit but rather as an entrepreneurial venture. They opened themselves up to try new things. The focus was to address the needs of its customers – both inside and outside the corporate walls. That ultimately showcased IT as an enabler instead of a cop.

In today’s super competitive, global marketplace, organizations that don’t want to fall behind need to be run by leaders that are open to adapting their frame of mind and leadership frameworks to make way for the future. They need to ADAPT and find new ways for their new audience – the Millennials.

Quote: “ If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader” ~ Seth Godin in Tribes: We Need YOU to Lead Us

Being uncomfortable is how transformation begins. When I first started hiring Millennials, I didn’t want to change. The more they perplexed me, the more I dug my heels in my comfort zone. It wasn’t until I decided to understand why they perplexed me that the transformation in my leadership style took place and led to the creation of the C.A.R.E. System for Next Generation Leadership. That led to first seeing the potential Millennials brought to the workplace then tapping it then capitalizing on it.

The first step in doing that is to CONNECT. Many of us who cut our management teeth in the 20th Century approach leadership like this: I, leader, have a certain leadership style that you, employee, will need to get comfortable with. It is not my responsibility to figure you out or adapt my style to meet your needs. You need to conform to my style and work effectively under that style.

Really? Do we really want to lead that way? Does it work for us? If we were honest with ourselves, we would admit that working for a boss that took the time to know us and spend quality time with us are the ones we liked working for and worked the hardest for. Now more than ever, making a special connection with each of our employees is not only critical but expected. The more removed we are from our staff, the less effective they will be and that will reflect back to us. We also minimize our message and our vision. We need that direct connection to our teams to spread our message and communicate our goals.

So how can you begin to CONNECT? Let’s look at the Starbucks case study for real world examples. Here’s the link to the Information Week article.

As the new CIO for Starbucks, one of the first things Stephen Gillett did was connect with the people in the trenches and with Starbuck’s customers. How did he do that? He shadowed them by actually working in one of the retail stores. This is one of the key components in the C.A.R.E. System. As a leader you need to spend time with your target audience whether it’s your employees or your customers. It’s important for 3 reasons:

You see firsthand how employees work. You can observe their thinking process as they complete their tasks. How is that thought process unique and can you leverage it in other areas or functions in your team? You also see how they do their tasks. Are there shortcuts that they are taking and are unaware of that help speed up the work? Can those shortcuts be applied in other areas of your operation? Or perhaps they are missing important steps that require more training? Is there duplication of work that you were not aware of? No report or spreadsheet analysis will give you that kind of intelligence.

You see if the process works or doesn’t. In the case of Gillett, as he worked at a Starbucks store, he quickly realized that the point-of –sale (POS) system was broken. Even though the Starbucks brass knew the limitations of the system they were more focused on growth strategies and opening stores. They didn’t realize that the limitations of the POS were contributing to problems in opening new stores.

You are able to make better and more intelligent decisions when prioritizing projects based on your firsthand experiences in the trenches.

If shadowing is effective downstream – working directly with your employees and/or customers, it is equally effective upstream – with your executive team. After spending time shadowing downstream at a Starbucks store, Gillett decided to bring the same experience upstream, to the executive team. He created a Tech Derby which is really a live simulation of a problem showing the pain points and a proposed solution to the problem. The simulation acted as a shadowing opportunity. Through a large-screen display, the executive team, including the CEO, Howard Schultz, shadowed a barista painfully placing an order in the outdated POS system. They got to see not just hear about how much time was wasted as the baristas had to translate orders so the POS system could capture them. Then, through a mock up of the proposed replacement system, the executive team was able to shadow the new process to see how much faster and more effective it was.

According to the article, “When they showed both to Schultz, ‘he just turned around and said, When? And whatever you’re going to tell me, it has to be faster’”. That’s how effective shadowing is and how powerful the concept of Connecting is to introduce change.

Imagine how connecting with your Millennials or others in your team can give you a bird’s eye view to what’s going on in the trenches. Imagine how many things you’ll be able to discover, uncover and identify that can be game changers to your team and ultimately your organization. The days when leaders could run teams by just interacting with their direct reports without a strong connection to their team members are disappearing quickly. The opportunity for innovation and real transformation lie with the ideas and creativity of those closest to the problems your team faces every day. You need to connect with them to tap and harness that creativity and find innovative solutions.

What examples do you have that illustrate how you CONNECT with your employees?

“Alicia, I’m up to my eyeballs in work and more keeps getting piled on. The last thing I need is to deal with a bunch of kids that have no clue how things get done at work but want to show me a better way of doing things. If it’s been good enough for us, it’ll be good enough for them, too.”

Bob was the CIO of a mid-size company and his tirade didn’t end there. It went on for another few minutes as he let out his frustration with managing the Millennials in his team. As a leadership expert who specializes in the Millennial generation and Next Generation leadership issues, I get to hear similar tirades from clients and in networking events. This happened to be a networking event and the minute Bob found out what I did, he started spewing.

It’s called F.U.D. Many years ago, I had a finance professor that used this acronym as he tried to explain market volatility. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Since then I’ve heard the term used in a variety of contexts and as Bob was talking, it kept flashing through my mind. Bob was locked in the status quo. Just the mere thought of having to deal with something unfamiliar during such tumultuous times made his head hurt.

Millennials represent the unfamiliar to Bob and many of today’s leaders and it puts them in FUD mode. Instead of trying to understand and embrace the Millennials and use the experience as an opportunity to change their thinking [Oh, Nooooo!], these leaders go into what I call the hunker mentality: they firmly grasp the old, conventional way of leading and seeing things and refuse to open their minds to the possibility of a new way. The more Millennials try to infuse a different perspective into the team or the workplace, the more hunkered down these leaders get in the old ways.

Here’s the problem with the hunker mentality: the more leaders in a company that prescribe to that mentality, the more at risk that company is to being left behind. Instead of seeing the Millennial FUD factor as a bad thing, smart leaders are using it as a wake-up call to find new ways of leading that begin to incorporate the unique perspectives the Millennials bring so they can attract, motivate and engage them going forward. Let’s not forget that the Millennials are the next generation leaders and the world they will lead is starkly different than the world that created the old, conventional ways. Let’s also not forget that as Baby Boomers, many of us won’t be retiring as planned. So if your strategy was to “get out of dodge” before the massive influx of Millennials hit your workplace, you may want to re-think that strategy, huh?

So are you in FUD-land? Go ahead. Take a chance. Acknowledge the FUD factor, get uncomfortable and try new things. It will ultimately better prepare you to lead our next generation leaders. Years ago, I was knee deep in FUD as I started hiring Millennials at work. I was determined to figure out why. I had to learn to get uncomfortable. I had to un-learn some leadership techniques that didn’t work anymore and upgrade some others to work in the 21st Century. Millennials need us to get uncomfortable so we can help them become the leaders they need to be in the new normal that is just beginning to unfold. They are counting on you to work through your particular FUDs and come out on the other side. The other side is not so bad. Really…

I think we do and we need to do it fast. In my last blog post I talked about how so many people have been approaching me lately about how unhappy they are in their corporate jobs. I think the economic woes we’re facing are making people cautious about leaving a steady paycheck but at the same time, it’s highlighting just how pervasive poor leadership is within the corporate ranks. When times were better, people had more career options and would leave a company when they got tired of its poor leadership. Today, they can’t and it’s putting a spotlight on just how de-moralizing poor leadership can be to a team.

Although leaders know they have the upper hand in this economy, they have to always remember that it won’t be like that forever. If they are lousy bosses, their employees know it and so does everyone else.

It’s not hard to re-imagine leadership so that you have happy employees. Any good leader will tell you that employees don’t want much – they want work that is fulfilling and they want to be respected and acknowledged for their contributions. That’s it. The problem is that many of us who have led for a number of years are sticking to some pretty outdated ways of leading that prevent our employees from getting those 2 simple things they want most.

So here are 3 things today’s hip and savvy leaders are doing to re-imagine how they lead in the 21st Century.

They ask for advice. Savvy leaders know that the days when they had all the answers are long gone. Today, the employees in the trenches know more about what’s going on than they do. After all, how current can you be when you’re stuck in meetings all day and most of your job requires you to ensure your team’s compliance with those countless regulations and policies required under HIPAA, SOX, MOUSE (just kidding). Getting your team involved and listening to their ideas is instrumental for successful leaders in the future.

They are willing to bend the rules. Let’s face it, the only way we are going to shed our old leadership comfort zones are to experiment with new ones. The only way to do that is if we bend the rules of how the game is played. Now I’m certainly not advocating we go and break corporate rules and get ourselves into trouble. I’m talking about breaking the rules we’ve used from the past to lead in the future. So for example, just because something hasn’t been done before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done. Just because our best practices don’t align with the new idea being considered doesn’t mean we shouldn’t test the “best” practice to see if something better should replace it. Bend the rules and test the “what-ifs”. Those “what-ifs” are the secret to staying viable in the future.

They learn. If you aren’t open to learning new things every day you will not make it as a leader in the 21st Century. The pace of change is grueling and it’s constantly challenging what we know on any given day. If you want to sit on your laurels and reap the benefits of the expertise you’ve developed in the past, you will become the poster child for poor leadership. You need to be in constant learning mode to hold the privilege of leading a team going forward. By your example, your team will know that they need to stay sharp and keep their skills up to date. And here’s a secret: you know those pesky 20-somethings that drive you crazy? They are a GREAT resource for you to keep you learning and to stay relevant with what is happening in the world today.

So how about it? Do you want to just take up space until you reach retirement or do you want to make a difference to the generations of up and coming leaders that are watching you for clues on how to be the best of the best? It’s your choice. If we are to re-imagine what leadership is going to be in the 21st Century, it starts with us – the leaders that have the courage to be different, be bold and willing to shed the past to make room for the future.

Since I left corporate to start my business a few years ago, I’ve had a steady stream of inquiries from friends and colleagues about getting out of corporate. For some reason, over the last few months, those inquiries have increased significantly. Now these are bright, talented individuals making very decent incomes who are absolutely miserable and disgusted with corporate life. I point that out because many times people think it’s just the 20-somethings that are complaining about corporate life. No, folks. It’s not just the Gen Yers – it’s Xers and lots of Boomers doing the complaining.

In every case , without exception, when I dig a little bit to find out what is at the root of the unhappiness, it turns out to be poor leadership. There are many reasons given. Here’s the top 10 list of complaints:

My boss has no clue what’s going on in the team.

My boss is a very good [fill in the expertise – salesperson, accountant, lawyer] but he’s a lousy manager.

My boss doesn’t stick up for us and caves in to the demands of other departments or higher ups.

The staff isn’t getting a raise but the higher ups are getting outrageous bonuses this year.

My boss is so afraid of losing her job that she refuses to listen to new ideas we’ve presented that can help the team.

My boss listens to people who are out of touch with the realities of what the team faces.

My boss is not well respected by the higher ups or his colleagues and is ineffective.

My boss is just holding on long enough to get retirement.

My boss has a sink or swim mentality.

My boss has no time for his employees.

Any of these ring a bell? Which ones resonate the most with you? What complaint isn’t on there that you feel strongly about? For me, the ones that would put me over the edge were #1, 3, 5 and 7.

After listening to so many people repeat these reasons over and over again, I wondered how so many leaders could be so clueless about how their employees felt? I realize that employees aren’t going to volunteer that information to their boss even if he or she asks. I also know that employees aren’t always forthcoming in giving that information on employee engagement surveys no matter how much the company tries to convince them their answers are “confidential”.

So I decided to post the top 10 complaints here in the hopes that leaders would read them and ask themselves 3 probing questions.

Who is someone inside or outside the company that I trust that can give me an honest assessment of how I am perceived as a leader? We all know people in our careers that are honest, trustworthy and discreet that can help us answer whether our perception of how we lead matches how others see us lead. The answer might surprise you.

Do any of these complaints describe my peers or bosses? Can any of them remotely describe me? Many times if you can spot these behaviors in others around you, it makes you stop and reflect on your own and causes you to take some time to be introspective.

What is one thing I can do today to ensure that my perception of how I lead is aligned to how others see me as a leader?

Of course, to answer these questions truthfully require you, as a leader, to be objective about yourself. But more importantly, it requires you to still CARE about being an effective leader. From the sounds of the heightened grumblings I’m hearing lately, that may be the missing ingredient.

So my question for you is: are you one of the leaders described in this Top 10 list? What are you doing to make sure you’re not?

Last week, my friend, Gina Carroll, who also happens to be an awesome editor, reminded me that I had never posted the last blog in this series. My bad. So here goes.

The last of the disturbing trends that I see that can keep mediocrity alive & well in Corporate America is the resistance to tap into AND harness the talent that Millennials bring to the workplace. Millennials have been in the workplace for 10 years now and still corporate leaders are having difficulty managing them. As I work with corporate clients, I see their continued insistence to hold on to entrenched systems that worked in the past. Having been in their shoes, I totally understand why they want to do that. They have worked long and hard to get processes and systems in place. There’s a lot invested in corporate SOP (Standard Operating Procedures). The thought of having to give up the tried and true for the trial and error isn’t something many leaders are enthusiastic about doing.

The problem is that continuing to hold on to the tried and true is a prescription for being left behind. The Millennials are the messengers of the future. By pulling them into our 20th Century leadership comfort zones all but guarantees that we will miss the boat. Instead, we should be letting them push us into the 21st Century. But yet leaders are hesitant to do it. This creates a Triple Jeopardy situation in the workplace.

1. Exodus of talent. Talented Gen Yers leave the organization. Tired and fed up with being hand tied and unable to make a difference, the very best and brightest just opt to leave. Where is your future leadership pipeline coming from?

2. Cost. The organization has just wasted time, money & effort on hiring those Gen Yers that subsequently leave. In addition, the employees that remain have to pick up the slack until another replacement is found. This further upsets an already overworked group of people.

3. Rinse &Repeat. The process of hiring the replacement starts the cycle all over again. Without a solid plan in place to engage and leverage the talents Millennials bring, there is a high likelihood that the cycle of turnover will repeat itself again. The organization is perpetuating the problem and falling further behind the innovation curve.

But it doesn’t have to be that way if leaders would be willing to shift their thinking a bit to see 20-somethings as allies instead of aliens. By being unwilling to let go of the status quo, companies are snubbing their nose at 3 ways Millennials can bring profits, growth and vibrancy to the organization. Here’s how they do that.

1. By being Solutionists. 20-somethings are wired to get things done. Whether it was the many demands placed on their time as young children, or the video games they play or the need to make sense of a chaotic world, Millennials are focused on solutions and being resourceful in getting to those solutions.

2. EmbracingReal-Time Reality vs. Delayed Action. You will rarely see a Gen Yer opt to put something on a list so they can get to it later. They tackle the problem on the spot. They look it up and get it done. For Boomer leaders, this is uncomfortable and unsettling to see. We prefer delayed action – let’s put it on our “To-Do” list, let’s research it some more, let’s meet a few more times to explore the problem, etc., etc. Millennials are in-tune with the fact that in today’s world, you won’t get to it later. They never knew a time when there was time to spare. Summers off to play? Only one after school activity? No volunteering on the weekends? This is all shocking to them because from an early age, their lives were full of activities that required you to be present and engaged and responding to things in real-time. There is no missed window of opportunity.

3. Plugging into the Collective. You can’t beat a 20-something in their ability to tap the collective. They realize that 2 heads are better than one and 10 are better than 2. They instinctively know to reach out to others in getting things done because the result will be a better product or solution. Instead of the individual being front & center, it’s the group that works the magic. The collective is at the root of the solution and the ability to tackle problems real time instead of putting it on the list.

Millennials have the 21st Century mindset imbedded in how they think, act and work. By understanding and leveraging that mindset, leaders can infuse fresh, new ways of doing things going forward. Millennials are the messengers of the future and it’s vital that organizations retain the best of them. We will retain them by letting them re-train our automatic defaults. Those tried and true instinctive reactions we have worked so hard to master will get in the way of our ability to: make decisions in real-time, to test our best practices for future viability, to infuse innovation into our SOP.

If Corporate America is going to be a meaningful player in the future, it has to look inward and let go of a lot of the trash it has built up over the years. Like Jennifer Hudson says in the Weight Watcher’s commercial ” It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life” for us as corporate leaders… and yes, embracing it all will also make us ”feel good” IF we give ourselves permission to be bold, experiment & try new things. The Millennials are ready to work with us to forge a new way. Are we?

Like most Baby Boomers, I am used to getting information with enough detail and relevance that I can use it as needed. Notice I said as needed and not necessarily immediately. In other words, I like my information to be relatively meaty. One of the biggest lessons I learned in my lab when I was a corporate executive was that 20-somethings or Millennials don’t like information delivered the same way I like it. In fact, it’s just the opposite. They like it bite-sized, punchy and when needed and not a minute before. Instead of a meal, they want a snack.

That changed the way I communicated with this group in my team. It was also one of the determining factors in transforming the way I led. Since I learned and honed my management techniques and style under the 20th Century model, I was committed to communicating in the same way to all my team members. After all, I didn’t want to be accused of being inconsistent or treating people differently. How many times were we told that “one size fits all” was best when it came to employees? That way there was no confusion or misunderstandings.

Well, in the 21st Century model, when it comes to our newest job entrants and customers, one size fits all simply doesn’t work & is totally ineffective. When it comes to communicating, it’s absolutely necessary to chunk down your message. It’s called “information snacking”. Love the term!

I’m including a video where Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications is talking to Erin Lieberman Moran of the Great Place To Work Institute. By the way, the Great Place to Work Institute is the company that selects the top 100 companies to work for every year and Fortune Magazine reports on the results in their magazine. According to their website, Ragan Communications is the “leading publisher of corporate communications, public relations, and leadership development newsletters”. So both Erin and Mark know a thing or two about communicating in today’s world. Check out what they have to say about information snacking.

Right below that video, I included a video I did a couple of months ago from my Gen Yer on Fire series. The goal of the series is to highlight “the other side of Gen Y.” In other words, the good side of Gen Y that many of us as leaders often overlook. The series shows how Gen Yers are opting out of corporate careers and applying their creativity and hard work in areas they are passionate about.

So here’s Erin and Mark chatting about information snacking :

Here’s my Gen Yer on Fire video with a different but similar slant on information snacking. Oh, yeah, and one more thing: I’m not an actress and you’ll clearly see I don’t play one on the video. I’m just doing what Millennials say to do: live out loud and share my message!

So what about you? What can you do today to provide your 20-somethings with an information snack rather than a meal? I know you can do it !!!

“Yeah, sounds great BUT we’re not R&D… I don’t have the luxury of experimenting to see whether or not an idea will fly” That was the response a corporate colleague of mine gave when I approached him about collaborating on an idea. It also highlights the last Yeah But of the series – Not my Yob, man.

When it comes down to it, most corporate leaders today are so swamped with their day to day responsibilities that it leaves them little time to do, much less think about, activities that don’t contribute to those specific responsibilities. They practically freak out when someone approaches them about working on something new. The response is to always try to get out of it or put the least amount of effort into it. Their job is to carry out the specific deliverables they committed to delivering this year during the goals setting process. That’s it & as far as they’re concerned, that’s plenty.

The problem with that type of thinking is that it immediately rules out innovation & experimentation. New ideas don’t conveniently pop up when you have time on your hands. In fact, I’ve found that they usually manifest themselves when it’s most chaotic, when you are knee deep in a problem & trying to find a solution or a workaround. Those hectic situations get people focused on thinking creatively for an answer. The problem is that in the heat of the problem, a lot of the very creative ideas get thrown out because there is no time to put them into action. Instead of holding on to the idea for further investigation, most teams just forget about them. The spark of an idea is allowed to fizzle into obscurity.

Years ago I conducted an experiment as I began to grapple with all 5 Yeah-Buts keeping me from pursuing innovation in my team. As my team & I were in the throes of solving an issue or finding an answer to a problem, I began to pay attention & look for instances where someone said “I wish we could do xxx” or “Too bad we don’t have time for xxx” or “Does anybody know how to xxx”. Those phrases carried the spark of a possible great idea.

As I heard these phrases, I began to write them down. Pretty soon I had accumulated a nice list. Any one of the ideas on the list could potentially lead us to a new product, a new service, a more efficient way of doing things. The only thing is that we needed to fuel the spark. That’s what ultimately led to the creation of the Idea Incubator. With the help of my team, we purposely & purposefully looked at ways we could carve out time to fuel the spark of those ideas.

At first, we could only find small amounts of time & were very selective about the idea (s) we pursued. What we discovered is that we all really enjoyed that small sliver of time away from the day to day grind to focus on what was possible. That laser focus on the idea gave us incredible momentum & results. Amazingly, one of the results was to really examine our daily activities & where we spent our time. We all found time wasters in our daily activities.

But here was the best part. We quickly acted on eliminating the time wasters. Why now & not before? Because everyone got a lot of satisfaction from experimenting with the new ideas & helping them take shape. Everyone was engaged in the process & learning a lot from it. The goal quickly became to find a way to make the Idea Incubator a part of our daily schedule. With time, we accomplished that goal & it was a game changer for the team.

Not all of the ideas we pursued led somewhere but all of them made us learn, challenged our comfort zones & contributed to finding solutions for other ideas. More importantly, everyone - from Gen Yers to Boomers – was engaged & motivated to come to work. What I realized as I battled the 5 Yeah-Buts is that I, as the leader of my team, had to find a way to integrate innovation into the daily fabric of the team or else it would never get done. The reality was that it wasn’t another team’s responsibility to experiment with new ideas. It was my responsibility as well.

I can’t argue with the fact that completing our day to day activities takes priority if we are to accomplish our annual goals & priorities. But we sacrifice our future if we only focus on the tasks at hand. Building a framework that allows experimentation to stand beside the day to day is the key to staying competitive in the future. Ensuring the company stays innovative & pioneers new ideas is every leaders responsibility & should never be assigned to one department or one function. Our jobs as leaders are to ensure our companies stay competitive, relevant & financially viable not just today but into the future.

So what about you? What are you doing today to fight the 5 Yeah-Buts to innovation? What framework are you building in your team that allows experimentation to thrive alongside the day to day? Remember, it starts with a baby step & it’s up to us to take the first one…